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Thanks Dick, Great advice! I plan on building hundreds of these so I'll heed your advice and go for the 6lb density. This is exactly the kind of advice I've been hoping for. What do you paint them with? What did you color the foam with? Yes, I'd prefer it was black. And yes, cost per unit matters to me as well. All these things add up to kill our margins so I do care what my "per unit" costs are.

Also, the weight matters significantly to me as well. I core out all of my cork grips and I want to continue with the theme that I build the lightest rods on the market. My customers notice it! For now I'm only interested in the CF.

I'm in the process of setting up a new CNC Machine that will be doing all of the foam grip lathe work so I'm setting up for sizable production. I am also in discussions with General Plastics looking into them producing these grip blanks and urethane grip liners (17mm - I want them run the entire length of the grip). I do want to mention that the North Fork CF Grips and very light and they have one layer of very fine unidirectional fabric. They're probably using maybe a 2-3oz fabric for this, given they are still so light. The nice part about this fabric is that it's very high modulus and is so thin that it has little effect on the final size of the grip. It also provides longitudinal strength not present in the sleeve. I'm going to use my Dremel, mounted to my metal lathe to cut all of the ends and the hood recesses.

Have any of you used any metallic powders as a color accent suspended in your final finish? I mean a very light accent. They make many colors and can help accent toward the colors of any special butt wraps or guide wraps you're doing.

Dick, do you buy your foam from US Composites? If you do just how many blanks does 16lbs make? I just built the pouring station that Tom had in RodMaker Volume 11 issue 1 (thank you Tom). Just how quickly do you burn through a "16lb" package? I'm using 1 1/4" PVC for my molds. I also made one with 1 1/2" PVC but I don't think I'll use it much.

And ... just as a general statement. I understand wanting to build the lightest rod possible. What I don't understand, is why weight aft of the reel seat is seemingly considered as being as detrimental to rod performance, as weight in front of the reel seat.

Weight ..... if it serves a purpose, is not the demon seed. Weight in the rear grip of a rod, helps to balance the rod and reel combination. And that is not a bad thing ....

The grip doesn't need to be "strong." It does need to be somewhat crush resistant depending on the use, such as in rod holders. Beyond that, the skin is just there to protect the core, not to add "strength."

As far as weight, the higher the stiffness to weight ratio is, the more sensitive the rod can be. So any additional weight, anywhere on the rod, reduces sensitivity. As you pointed out, the most detrimental effect of weight in terms of balance and performance is that place ahead of the point of effort (reel seat or forward grip) and the further the tip its located the greater this detrimental effect will be. As far as weight being your friend in terms of balance when located behind the point of effort, that depends on what your priority is - sensitivity or balance.

One of the nice things about custom rod building is being able to build the rod in the manner that suits you and what you do with it.

I have not used the metallic powders, but do use Testors transparent spray colors to give the grip a hint of color, works great, and can vary the amount of color easily. Spray color before final epoxy coating.

There is a picture of one in blue in my photos on this site, under grips.

I get both foam and epoxy from US Composites. I use their 1:2 ratio slow cure non blushing epoxy takes longer to set up but I don't have to worry about it blushing on me like some epoxies did. As far as how many cores I get out of an order I can only guess as I have never really kept track. 30-40? You can also see my grips in the photo area under my name. I tried the pvc for my cores a few times but never had great success. I used Riley Rods silicone molds but they have basically died on me. I have two left but they are on their last legs. Either I need to make my own silicone mold or figure out the pvc method.